The Eyes and the Impossible

Dave Eggers took inspiration from Golden Gate Park when creating Johannes’s home. The author lives in the San Francisco Bay area and often visits the public park, which was “created on 1013 acres of windswept sand dunes” in 1870 (“History of Golden Gate Park.” San Francisco Recreation and Parks, 8 Apr. 2024). Johannes’s home resembles Golden Gate Park in its proximity to the ocean and its massive size: The protagonist lives in a “vast green and windblown park by the sea” (11), and the hyperbolic canine estimates that it is “ten thousand miles along its length and about three thousand along its width” (14). Eggers references some of the park’s structures in his novel. For example, the “white-glass cathedral of flowers” is a nod to the Conservatory of Flowers (31). Opened in 1879, this “Victorian confection of wood and glass” is the park’s oldest building and houses over 1,000 species of plants (“Golden Gate Park Points of Interest.” San Francisco Recreation and Parks, 8 Apr. 2024). The park is also home to the de Young Museum of art. In the novel, Johannes’s fascination with art and his friends’ plan to sneak him into a newly opened art museum play an important role in the plot and the story’s exploration of